Your Hawks gave the Falcons everything they could handle. I think the Hawks are just MAYBE a year or two maturity to really be dangerous. (for example your O being more consistent and the D being wile vets lol)

So stay strong and be Proud, hopefully both our teams meet in next years big game.

FlyingGreg wrote:Thanks, we are! Tough way to lose - we had it right in our hands. Our defense HAS to solve the mystery of giving up leads in critical situations, or we won't get over the hump.

We expect big things next season...

Or our newly potent offense could just build bigger leads.

They'd get some help if the defense could get off the field on third down.

True. But I have to say, I was really disturbed by the trend we saw in the playoffs of the team getting in a big hole early. They didn't seem to do that all season, but it started showing up with the Washington game. That's a concern.

They'd get some help if the defense could get off the field on third down.

True. But I have to say, I was really disturbed by the trend we saw in the playoffs of the team getting in a big hole early. They didn't seem to do that all season, but it started showing up with the Washington game. That's a concern.

I agree. (Though getting into a hole comes back around to no 3rd down stops). Also, I think a lot of it has to do with too much run, run, pass in the beginning of the game. I'm hopeful that Bevell (if he returns) does more to establish the pass early to open up the run game, opponent depending.

I think that shock of the urgency the other teams, that had many vets that had been in the playoff before, played with caught our youngsters by surprise, and they gained gritty experience from these games. Next year I can guar-en-damn-tee you the do not come out flat in any game next year. They just found out how important every game on the schedule is. I am really sure no one wants to play us next year

I'm not concerned 1 bit with the shaky starts in the playoffs or conservative playcalling. I think these are off the mark.

We are a young team, playing on the road 2 weeks in a row. Of course it's not going to be easy.

I think the PATS will be in the Super Bowl unless the Raven's have a superb game. I hope that Krapernick craps his pants and the Falcons go the Big SHow. Matt Ryan's much more easy to root for those tools in SF.

PatsFanNH wrote:Your Hawks gave the Falcons everything they could handle. I think the Hawks are just MAYBE a year or two maturity to really be dangerous. (for example your O being more consistent and the D being wile vets lol)

So stay strong and be Proud, hopefully both our teams meet in next years big game.

Good to see you again. Yeah, we’re obviously going to have cancel that New Orleans date this year … BUT, things are certainly looking very bright for the Seahawks prospects for next year and beyond.

The Seahawks really dug their grave by their performances early this year. Now this is pretty well known around here, but a big part of what happened was that OC Darrell Bevell and Pete Carroll were holding back the reigns on the offense for Russell Wilson. Basically, they didn’t want to overwhelm a rookie with shouldering the responsibility to win games. So the offensive game plan was highly conservative early (Carroll fully admitted all of that)… and man did it show. Let me illustrate by showing you where Wilson’s Total QBR ranked on a week-by-week basis …

That chart is fairly telling. Bevell and company started taking the clamps off beginning with the Patriots game (lucky you guys) … but then promptly put them back on the following week against a good San Francisco Defense. That approach flopped and from there on out, the Hawks began putting more and more on his plate. Soon, you were seeing a lot of Zone Read Option, the Pistol, and all manner of wrinkles and trickery in the offense. And things really began taking off from there.

Russell Wilson finished the year 8th in the league in terms of Total QBR (69.6) … and he had 6 performances in which he ranked in the top 10 among all quarterbacks in terms of Total QBR over those last 8 weeks of the season.

The Seahawks were 4-4 during the First 8 Games of the season … and 7-1 during the Last 8 Games. I’d say that most of us believe that if they’d only trusted Wilson sooner and opened up the throttle earlier in the season … the Seahawks would have easily won at least 2 more games. Naturally, that would have changed everything, as they would have had home field advantage and Century Link Field (as everyone knows) is a real nightmare to play in.

Moving forward, just imagine what things are going to be like next season now that Russell Wilson’s got some experience under his belt and has zero restrictions on him. This Seahawks group is a very dangerous team indeed. They are young, they are hungry, and they are not satisfied with anything less than a Super Bowl title. There aren’t a whole ton of holes on this team and given that most of these Seahawks are young, I’d look for them to be good for some time to come. This team isn’t all that far away and once they retool this offseason and take care of the few holes that do exist, they will be an even more dangerous team next year. Watching the Falcons face the 49ers this weekend is going to be agony for these guys, so I fully expect them to come back to training camp this next year on a mission. Hopefully the Seahawks and Patriots meet again next year – that will be good matchup indeed. Until then, good luck this weekend and for the remainder of this season.